


good kid (i swear, i swear that im a good kid)

by hermicnee



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: And Luke, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, BAMF Annabeth Chase, BAMF Frank Zhang, BAMF Hazel Levesque, BAMF Jason Grace, BAMF Leo Valdez, BAMF Percy Jackson, BAMF Piper McLean, Child Neglect, Depressed Percy Jackson, F/F, F/M, Frank Zhang Needs a Hug, Hazel Levesque needs a hug, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jason Grace Needs a Hug, Leo Valdez Needs a Hug, M/M, Multi, POC Percy Jackson, Percy Jackson Needs a Hug, Piper McLean Needs a Hug, and bianca, and-, annabeth chase needs a hug, it do be like that, no beta we die like men, sorry - Freeform, why isnt that a tag
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:55:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23644201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hermicnee/pseuds/hermicnee
Summary: one shots for each of the seven going thru it.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Jason Grace/Percy Jackson/Hazel Levesque/Piper McLean/Leo Valdez/Frank Zhang, Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, kinda background doe
Comments: 11
Kudos: 71





	good kid (i swear, i swear that im a good kid)

**Author's Note:**

> i was angsty and thoughts of my babies needing better so. i did this. yeah. enjoy the sadness

i. annabeth chase

For all the monsters out there, Annabeth is scared of something as simple as spiders. She finds it ironic, and maybe a little sad, that even after battling cyclopses and blood hounds, she still gets frozen to her core when she sees a spider.

She finds it ridiculous, even though she knows its because of an old tale of a girl being too prideful and a goddess taking pity on her but. She feels small again when she sees it. Its multiple legs and eyes that seem to know her weaknesses, judging her and plotting her down fall. 

She stands at 5’6” and yet, in that moment, feels like a small five year old that had spiders crawling on her in the dead of night and no one believing her. Her step-mother frowning and saying to stop playing games because she can’t see the bites. Her father not even being there to turn away from her.

Sleeping, crawling, screaming, itching, scratching, repeat. By the time she was six, her body was riddled with old and new spider bites no one but she could see and her nails were raw and red from scratching them. Her step-mother sound proofed her room a few months after her sixth birthday because she kept screaming them awake. 

Even on the run, seven and small and tired, she still had spiders crawl on her. Sleeping behind dumpsters, on a bench, anywhere, the spiders found her. Luke and Thalia always tried to get them off but there was always one that got a bit in. 

Then at camp half blood, the spiders were gone. But she still woke up thinking they were back. Still had raw nails from old habits. Still had the old bites that her siblings said would never go away.

A demigod, who’s seen big, scary gods and battled many terrifying monsters and yet- greatest fear is fucking  _spiders_.

+

Annabeth prides herself on building up, towards something ( ~~towards the place of the gods perhaps?~~ ). She never looks down or behind, only forward and up because you get nothing but memories and what-ifs if you look down. 

But still, sometimes, Annabeth finds herself looking down despite her rule not to. She looks down by sitting underneath Thalia’s tree, bark rough against her back and arms and grass tickling her legs. She finds herself looking behind into the past when she sits next to the bonfire with Luke but all she can see is them huddled together on the run.

She hates it.

She hates the past, it has nothing but bitterness and a sense of doubt when she questions of what-ifs, what could’ve happened. And Annabeth never doubts herself, has no room for it. 

But she doubts herself when she thinks what would’ve happened if they were faster, if she took Thalia’s place, and the big one, if she hadn’t been tricked. She’s a daughter of the goddess of Wisdom and yet she made a mistake that costed her friend’s life.

Annabeth doesn’t hate herself, she tries to hate everything but herself because she shouldn’t. She’s better than that. And yet she hates herself when she thinks of what she did.

For someone with a lot of rules, Annabeth finds herself breaking half of them.

+

Annabeth wants to be free. She want’s to tase the air, even if it’s polluted and doesn’t tase of strawberries like camp, wants to feel concrete beneath her feet and push past people she doesn’t have to know of. In camp, people make a habit of knowing every fave, every name. 

She thinks its dumb and will only lead to sadness but she does it anyway. Luke once said, quietly and a whisper in the dark night while they sat in the forest, that it’s a way to show the gods they care about each other. Care enough to know their names and faces when they die, when they respect them.

Annabeth still thinks it’s not good but Luke started it and Annabeth would follow Luke to Hades. 

And don’t get her wrong, Annabeth loves camp, its home after all, but she wants to be free. Or more accurately, she wants a quest. 

Wants to battle monsters and solve the clues and lead the way to the great unknown. Want’s to have people follow her people they have to, because they even trust her. She even thinks of it, almost selfishly, when Luke with his glaring red new scar, says it isn’t worth it. He went out there and he failed. 

In a way, Annabeth doesn’t even care if she fails. She just wants  something . 

+

Annabeth is ten when she hears the prophecy. She acts like its fine and that she understands. But when she sits at Thalia’s tree...she sits and wonders and after a moment, cries. 

Because its not fine and no, she doesn’t understand. She’s smart but she doesn’t get it. Why why why why why-

She knows why, demigods train for something. This is what they’re training for. She wonders, quietly in a dark part of her brain, if this is really a bad thing. Thinks of the little children coming in bright eyed and being dull in a few weeks. Of Luke with his scarred face. Of herself, little scars littering her body. 

She thinks of the prophecy and thinks, numbly as she cries by the tree, if it’s not too bad.

+

Her hands crinkle and even tear the paper but she doesn’t really notice. She’s hiding, from who? She doesn’t know. Doesn’t know if its Luke or the world or the gods or even herself. She’s just hiding.

Her legs were curled beneath her so quickly that they sting from the rush of flying over the ground, her back is curled against Thalia’s tree- Thalia’s tree...always there, never changing, watching over her and the rest of camp.

Would Thalia know what to do in this moment? She’d probably curse and roll her eyes and say to throw the blasted paper away, then she’d throw her arm around her and pull her away for fun. But Thalia isn’t here, Thalia is a tree, Thalia is dead. 

Her hands tighten even more, the paper groaning in protest over it. She wants to tear it up and run away from it, wants to hold it tight and never let go. She doesn’t know what she wants. 

She stares numbly at her hands, painted with scars from spider bites and monsters alike. Mortal and mystical. She brings the paper close and accidentally hits her elbow on Thalia’s tree. She doesn’t even notice, just looks at where she hit the tree and thinks.

The demigod world sucks. She knows this, everyone knows this. You get hurt, you die, you rise, you don’t cry to mommy or daddy. The demigod world took Thalia from her and scarred Luka’s face.

Suddenly, she feels an urge to run, run, run, from this place. She doesn’t know what, maybe Camp Half Blood, maybe the gods, maybe everything in between.

Annabeth isn’t one to run. She’s one to grab a weapon and fight on the front lines but- she wants to run in this moment. This isn’t training or a fight, this is wanting to go  home. She wants to hug her dad, wants to have talks with Cynthia while she tries to teach Annabeth how to bake, maybe get to know her new step-brothers.

She knows it naive, Annabeth isn’t stupid, far from it, but she’s still a child even if she acts like an adult. So, for a moment, she imagines it. Imagines her and her dad and his (her? their?) family being normal and happy and...it’s nice.

So Annabeth runs to tell Chiron she’ll be going home for the winter. And hopes, and even prays a little, it won’t be that bad. 

+

It doesn’t last long. Annabeth hits herself for thinking it would. The spiders, those damn spiders always watching and waiting, came for her the moment her head hit the pillow. Oh, and the monsters. Of course the stupid child of Athena would think of the spiders first instead of the monsters. Thats what she is. Stupid stupid stupid stupid.

The monsters came a few days in, there was only a few monsters and she took care of them quickly, so quickly no one even noticed. She blames it on playing a war game with her dad, who only gave her that smile he used to give her and she was hooked even though she knows she shouldn’t have. 

She just- she was just weak. She missed her dad. The one who’d read her stories because she couldn’t herself, the one who’d smile and let her sit on his lap while he worked, the one the one the one- The one who didn’t pay attention to her anymore until she ran.

Tears blur her eyes as she stuffs her clothes into her bag. Cynthia had gotten angry and scared and said she shouldn’t have come. And- and Annabeth understands, she does. Cynthia has two children, who are her own flesh and blood, and she doesn’t want them to be ruined by her step-daughter’s world.

And yet, Annabeth still cries. She cries, she just doesn’t know what for. Maybe its for Thalia and Luke and Camp Half-Blood, her real home who accept and love her. Maybe its for her father and step-mother and step-brothers, who don’t understand her and don’t get her world and they’re scared. Maybe it’s for the child of The Great Prophecy that plagues her mind and makes her wake up in a cold sweat. Maybe it’s for herself, the child of a soldier, barley 4’7” and yet can hold a sword better than most warriors.

She cries and she packs her bags and she runs like she’s still that seven year old. Except this time there’s no smirking blue eyed girl or king blond haired boy, just a tree and a field and cabins.

+

When she see’s him, the boy with wild curly hair and dark skin and a horn in one hand, she knows. She knows it’s him. It clicks, like the puzzle piece you’ve been searching for and finally found, like you found something you’ve been thinking about but couldn’t remember. 

She feels like she can breathe, like she’s been drowning and he grabbed her out. She tries to ignore it, this is something bigger, so she ignores the feeling of being complete. And she watches and waits and when he walks up, all she tells him is that he drools in his sleep.

+

Her mom once gave Annabeth a hat that turns her invisible. Kinda fitting, for her and the demigods in general. They’re invisible until they do something, and after they’re not there anymore to them. 

She’s always felt this but never said it, unless you count Annabeth telling Thalia’s tree. She haven’t even told Luke. 

So she doesn’t really know why she’s telling Percy. Its dark and quiet and Grover fell asleep a while ago. She had listened to them talking about her and she wanted to tell Percy something herself.

So she whispered it. Whispered how fucking fitting it is to have a hat that makes her invisible. And how she wants to get out there and wants to be remembered because its what she, what the demigods, deserve.

Percy looks at her like she strung the moon and stars, and she feels special.

+

Annabeth would never say, but she gets a bit seasick. She doesn’t know if she’s a child of Athena and Poseidon and water is the enemy or if its just her but being a small boat for a quest is literally her worst nightmare (thats a lie, her worse nightmare is spiders but.)

Admittedly, Percy controlling is the boat later on is better than the small raft but she still feels green in the face. 

Falling off a boat was not really helping her seasickness. 

Even on the boat she didn’t feel better, wrapped warmly under Percy’s hoodie (that she forgot he even had.) She leaned against one of the polls, the wood smoother than Thalia’s tree. She hated it but she was doing this mission on the stupid sea for her, her family. She couldnt really whisper her thoughts and fears because Percy was in the front but looked back at her with a shaky smile every now and then, so she couldn’t do what she wanted (and yes she knew it was stupid, shut up.)

So she curled more into the red (not blue, surprisingly) hoodie and just wondered. She thought of how it felt to drown, water burning her throat and eyes stinging- dreaming of Luke being good and her dad and mom being together and everything redone how she wanted. 

Is it really bad to want to make things good?

Maybe so, if its for selfish reasons.

+

She’s back, oh gods she’s back.

Annabeth has spent years of sitting at Thalia’s tree and telling her stuff she never told anyone else, not even Luke. She spilt tears she refused to show everyone. 

Thalia is warm and breathing and here. She’s here under Annabeth’s arms, her bright lightning blue eyes crackle like they always do, her freckles make constellations Annabeth would trace and name, her hair is short and wild and tickles her face and Annabeth loves it and loves her and-

She’s so happy.

Things may be going to war and yet, wrapped around Thalia and never letting go, she feels good.

A part of her hopes it’ll last. 

+

It hurtsithurtsithurtsithurts.

All she think is the pain. Her arms and shoulders burn and her legs are shaking and she doesn’t want to be here. Tears mix with her sweat and she doesn’t know what’s happening anymore.

How long has it been since she fell down that cliff? A day? A week? A month? A year?

It hurt to breathe, like last year trying to swim to the sirens. Except this time instead of water filling her lungs, its her sweat and struggling sir.

She wants she wants she wants- she wants home, whether its her dad and step-mom and step-brothers, or Thalia’s tree and Camp Half Blood, or even just Luke. She wants home, she wants Percy’s warm hoodie and the Stoll brothers causing mayhem at camp and Clarisse glaring at her but quietly next to her when they train kids. She wants her siblings and dad and Percy and- 

She wants to not hurt anymore. 

But she was always hurt, even before.

+

Her own quest. She’s been dreaming of this since a kid, since she went on the quest with Percy. Finally, she was the leader, not the follower ( ~~ even if she’d follow Percy anywhere ~~ ~~.~~ ) 

And still she doubted herself, she shouldn’t, she knows she’s ready for this but. What if she was wrong with choosing three instead of two people. What if she leads them into a trap. What if they never see the sun again. What if someone gets hurt, or worse, dies. What if what if what if.

Annabeth didn’t like what if’s, resented them, actually. But she can’t help but think of everything that may go wrong.

+

Percy’s an idiot but god does Annabeth almost cry when he’s back.

She does cry, in anger, of where he went. Of course of course of fucking course- 

Of course he’d go there.

She wants to go to Thalia’s tree and whisper how she feels but Thalia is with the hunters and all she’d be doing is whisper to a tree, not her Thalia.

So she hides in the forest somewhere and wonders if Percy selfishly thought of stay with Calypso.

Annabeth can’t really blame him if he did, she’s still angry about it though because she’s selfish.

+

Percy’s an idiot, an idiot who became invincible to save their friends, their families, the gods (but the last one is shaky.)

Who holds her hand tight and says it’ll be okay, even with a deep stab meant for him.

Who she loves.

And an idiot (who, really is smarter than her in some aspects and gods she loved him even more for it) who’s being offered immortality.

Annabeth wants to scream, and cry, and tear Olympus apart because she can’t lose him. Can’t lose him as a friend, a member of her small family. 

But she stays blank and wonders what he’ll do, selfishly wonders that he’ll say no.

He hesitates but then he says it and-

Did she hear that right?

Is this a dream?

No, by the reactions of the gods, its not. Percy Jackson actually said no to being a god.

She’s angry and happy and wants to cry at the same time.

Instead, Percy asks for them to treat their children better and claim them and- she loves him even more.

He thinks of others, not himself.

Annabeth knows he’s end the world for his loved ones, a part of her knows she’d never do that, and that makes him special.

+

Annabeth Chase will always be scared of spiders, even more monsters and gods and wars. But it’s a fact like Percy being loyal and her being prideful.

And her loving Percy, and six others who come in later, so much.

**Author's Note:**

> ugh i hated that ending but im tired and i like the rest so. fuck it imma post this. i love annabeth and she deserves more bc yall pay her DIRT AND FOR WHAT????
> 
> annabeth, and the others, are so complicated so i..hope i did her justice?? also theres a lot of hcs in this bc i love rich and canon but he did somw things so..not good anyways. 
> 
> hope you enjoyed, pls comment and give kudos bc i am a whore. thank u
> 
> (also yes rhe seven r poly, u can pry this from my hands fuck u)


End file.
